By using color, light, and pattern in ingenious ways, even the smallest space can appear larger. Here are some big ideas--all wonderfully shown in photographs--for using every nook and cranny efficiently and effectively. Make the most of tiny apartments, merge rooms, widen doorways, and turn cramped quarters into cozy nooks. Play tricks on the eye with mirrors, take some hints on cutting down the clutter, and lots more!
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Space is a matter of perception as well as reality, and this book addresses scale, balance and color as well as the space-saving tricks that turn a small apartment into a comfortable home. It offers advice on using vertical space, such as hanging pictures above a window, stacking bookshelves to the ceiling, and raising a bed to the height of a chest of drawers that fits underneath; converting closets into cupboard beds, storage areas into offices, porches into dining areas, and garages into family rooms; using color to pull spaces together visually; making furniture serve dual functions. Most of the interiors are tastefully expensive, though the same effects could probably be obtained on an Ikea budget. There's not much hard-core how-to in these pages, but a wealth of ideas. All in all, it's a pleasant designer's guide to making do with less space without skimping on comfort.
Review
Every shelter magazine seems to have spinoff books, which means they get more mileage from the expensive photographs that are the heart and soul of the genre. Some books are better than the others, just like the magazines themselves. Among the best is the House Beautiful series, which not only offers handsome photographs, but informative text as well.
This edition concentrates on the imaginative use of space, showing how to get the most out of a neglected corner, an undersized living room, or a tiny apartment. A few of the suggestions seem obvious: "Edit your possessions." Others inventive: "Give in to reality and play up the small." -- Sunday Record, Hackensack, NJ, June 7, 1998
Rooms of any size can be retreats, but small rooms are cozy. House Beautiful's Small Spaces (Hearst Books, $30) also will provide inspiration for rooms designed around relaxation. The 176 pages are filled with color photos, each of a room -- a small room -- that is somebody's haven. Space -- making small spaces feel larger through the use of furniture, wallpaper, colors and accessories -- is the focus of the book, but don't let that deter you from using it as a guide for comfortable dcor. The tricks used to expand rooms in Small Spaces often are the same ones that make a home a haven:
* "If the walls are too close, the ceiling too low, the furniture too crowded - make them vanish," according to the book. "One basic strategy, which comes in a hundred variations, is to dissolve the walls in strong pattern, bold color, or sheer gloss - stripes, florals, solids, enamels - so that edges cede to surface." * Find a pattern or color that you like and use it as the focal point or accent in a room. You'll feel comfortable when you're in that space.
* Find some new place and create a retreat.
"Another overlooked spot hiding in plain sight is the middle of a room," the book says. "Furniture usually hugs the walls, leaving the center unoccupied. Try a pedestal table piled with books in the middle of a living room..." Put a comfortable chair nearby. It can be dragged to the table, or you can take books from the table to peruse while relaxing.
* Edit your possessions so each piece of furniture and accessory has a chance to breathe. An interior designer, quoted in Small Spaces, remarks that given that real estate agents always say "location, location, location" is the motto when buying a home, then "edit, edit, edit" are the key words in design.
In essence, less clutter often makes a room more comfortable. -- Arizona Republic, June 20, 1998
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very nice book, but not too useful if your budget is low.,
By A Customer
This review is from: House Beautiful Small Spaces (Hardcover)
This book offers many unique ideas for those who want to redecorate a small home or apartment- provided that they have lots of money to do what the book suggests. Its a good book to have when looking for ideas on how to make the most of odd, small spaces. The photos are beautiful, clear and filled with elegant design ideas. Unfortunately it isn't a very practical book for someone like the broke college student looking for frugal decorating tips and do-it-yourself space saving ideas for a small studio or apartment to prevent it from looking like an eyesore. Since I happen to fall into this category, I regret that I can't find much use for this book at the moment.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Idea Sourcebook-- If You're Imaginative...,
This review is from: House Beautiful Small Spaces (Hardcover)
My husband and I don't have a lot of money. We live in a one-bedroom apartment in Cincinnati. But if you're accustomed to making expensive ideas work for a miniscule budget, it's a perfect book. True, most of the designers featured in the book live in Manhattan (which is woefully expensive; those great apartments you see in movies or on TV are actually more in the price range of folks making near six figures), and some of the ideas really weren't my style, but if you do a little reading between the lines, you get good basic ideas on how to maximize your space. Truth be told, not all of the ideas used were that expensive. Slipcovers for chairs and sofas abounded, old furniture was given new life with decorative painting. Remember two things as you go through the beautiful settings: 1) these were done by artistic designers and certainly a good portion of these things were done by hand as opposed to bought, and 2) gorgeous, tasteful items don't have to cost an arm and a leg if you look in the right places.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book on decorating small spaces,
By A Customer
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: House Beautiful Small Spaces (Hardcover)
This is, by far, the best book I've found on decorating small spaces. I pick it up again and again, and it always inspires me. It illustrates different techniques you can use to create the illusion of more space, maximize space, or create a cozy space. Although the styles are expensive, many of the techniques can be used even with a small budget, i.e., using mirrors, patterned wallpaper, furniture you can see through, hanging curtains above window frames, etc.
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